This book addresses the history of interaction in the Aegean world during the third century BC. The main focus is the island of Delos and its important regional sanctuary. Through a thorough ...
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This book addresses the history of interaction in the Aegean world during the third century BC. The main focus is the island of Delos and its important regional sanctuary. Through a thorough investigation of the Delian epigraphic and material evidence, it explores how and to which degree the islands of the southern Aegean formed active networks of political, religious, and cultural interaction. The book aims to show that this kind of regional interaction in the southern Aegean resulted in the creation of a regional identity, which was expressed, among other things, in the existence of a federal union of the islands, the so-called Islanders’ League. It is structured along the lines of four case studies which explore different types of networks around Delos: the federal organization of islands (Islanders’ League), the participation of Delian and other agents in the processes of monumentalization of the Delian landscape, the network of honours, and the social dynamics of dedication through the record of dedicants in the Delian inventories.Less

Aegean Interactions : Delos and its Networks in the Third Century

Christy Constantakopoulou

Published in print: 2017-09-21

This book addresses the history of interaction in the Aegean world during the third century BC. The main focus is the island of Delos and its important regional sanctuary. Through a thorough investigation of the Delian epigraphic and material evidence, it explores how and to which degree the islands of the southern Aegean formed active networks of political, religious, and cultural interaction. The book aims to show that this kind of regional interaction in the southern Aegean resulted in the creation of a regional identity, which was expressed, among other things, in the existence of a federal union of the islands, the so-called Islanders’ League. It is structured along the lines of four case studies which explore different types of networks around Delos: the federal organization of islands (Islanders’ League), the participation of Delian and other agents in the processes of monumentalization of the Delian landscape, the network of honours, and the social dynamics of dedication through the record of dedicants in the Delian inventories.

Thanks to Olympias, a full-scale working model of an Athenian trieres (trireme or “three”) built by the Hellenic Navy during the 1980s, we better understand the physical properties of the trireme ...
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Thanks to Olympias, a full-scale working model of an Athenian trieres (trireme or “three”) built by the Hellenic Navy during the 1980s, we better understand the physical properties of the trireme navies that defeated Xerxes at Salamis and helped build the Athenian Empire of the High Classical Age. The Age of Titans picks up the story of naval warfare and naval power after the Peloponnesian War, following it through the 4th and 3rd centuries BC when Alexander’s successors built huge oared galleys in what has been described as an ancient naval arms race. This book represents the fruits of more than thirty years of research into warships “of larger form” (as Livy calls them) that weighed hundreds of tons and were crewed by 600 to 1000 men and more. The book argues that concrete strategic objectives, more than simple displays of power, explain the naval arms race that developed among Alexander’s successors and drove the development of a new model of naval power we might call “Macedonian.” The model’s immense price tag was unsustainable, however, and during the third century the big ship phenomenon faded in importance, only to be revived unsuccessfully by Antony and Cleopatra in the 1st century BC.Less

The Age of Titans : The Rise and Fall of the Great Hellenistic Navies

William Murray

Published in print: 2012-01-06

Thanks to Olympias, a full-scale working model of an Athenian trieres (trireme or “three”) built by the Hellenic Navy during the 1980s, we better understand the physical properties of the trireme navies that defeated Xerxes at Salamis and helped build the Athenian Empire of the High Classical Age. The Age of Titans picks up the story of naval warfare and naval power after the Peloponnesian War, following it through the 4th and 3rd centuries BC when Alexander’s successors built huge oared galleys in what has been described as an ancient naval arms race. This book represents the fruits of more than thirty years of research into warships “of larger form” (as Livy calls them) that weighed hundreds of tons and were crewed by 600 to 1000 men and more. The book argues that concrete strategic objectives, more than simple displays of power, explain the naval arms race that developed among Alexander’s successors and drove the development of a new model of naval power we might call “Macedonian.” The model’s immense price tag was unsustainable, however, and during the third century the big ship phenomenon faded in importance, only to be revived unsuccessfully by Antony and Cleopatra in the 1st century BC.

To all those who witnessed his extraordinary conquests, from Albania to India, Alexander the Great appeared invincible. How Alexander himself promoted this appearance—how he abetted the belief that ...
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To all those who witnessed his extraordinary conquests, from Albania to India, Alexander the Great appeared invincible. How Alexander himself promoted this appearance—how he abetted the belief that he enjoyed divine favor and commanded even the forces of nature against his enemies—is the subject of this book. Solid evidence for the “supernaturalized” Alexander lies in a rare series of medallions that depict the triumphant young king at war against the elephants, archers, and chariots of Rajah Porus of India at the Battle of the Hydaspes River. Recovered from Afghanistan and Iraq in sensational and sometimes perilous circumstances, these ancient artifacts have long animated the modern historical debate about Alexander. The book considers the history of their discovery and interpretation, the knowable facts of their manufacture and meaning, and, ultimately, the king's own psyche and his frightening theology of war. The result is an analysis of Alexander history and myth, a vivid account of numismatics, and a fascinating look into the age-old mechanics of megalomania.Less

Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the Elephant Medallions

Frank Holt

Published in print: 2003-11-24

To all those who witnessed his extraordinary conquests, from Albania to India, Alexander the Great appeared invincible. How Alexander himself promoted this appearance—how he abetted the belief that he enjoyed divine favor and commanded even the forces of nature against his enemies—is the subject of this book. Solid evidence for the “supernaturalized” Alexander lies in a rare series of medallions that depict the triumphant young king at war against the elephants, archers, and chariots of Rajah Porus of India at the Battle of the Hydaspes River. Recovered from Afghanistan and Iraq in sensational and sometimes perilous circumstances, these ancient artifacts have long animated the modern historical debate about Alexander. The book considers the history of their discovery and interpretation, the knowable facts of their manufacture and meaning, and, ultimately, the king's own psyche and his frightening theology of war. The result is an analysis of Alexander history and myth, a vivid account of numismatics, and a fascinating look into the age-old mechanics of megalomania.

Ancient economies, outside the Persian, and later, Roman empires, were unlike the economies of modern nation states. Transactions were conducted bilaterally, just like a face to face contract, so ...
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Ancient economies, outside the Persian, and later, Roman empires, were unlike the economies of modern nation states. Transactions were conducted bilaterally, just like a face to face contract, so exchanges led to the development of a dense network of agreements. This book explores the economic networks within a region framed by the Pindhos and Balkan mountain chains on the west and north, the Black Sea and the Bosporus to east and south, in the second half of the first millennium bc. The Greco-Persian wars, at the start of this period, triggered a process of political integration, as two dynastic powers, Macedon and Odrysian Thrace, expanded across this land mass, and whose progressive demise brought about by Roman military and political interventions culminated in economic integration with the Roman state, as represented in the implementation of the tax law of Asia, during the course of the first century bc. The chapters focus at least as much on preoccupations with workmanship, as they do on the lifestyles of leading fashionable circles, and the economic agents of the intervening centuries, such as merchants from Thasos, leather workers of civic centres of the interior, and metal smiths from various mountainous zones. Exchange is unthinkable without markets playing a key role, while animals must also be factored into the debate about travel and the intensity of traffic.Less

Ancient Economies of the Northern Aegean : Fifth to First Centuries BC

Zosia Halina Archibald

Published in print: 2013-11-21

Ancient economies, outside the Persian, and later, Roman empires, were unlike the economies of modern nation states. Transactions were conducted bilaterally, just like a face to face contract, so exchanges led to the development of a dense network of agreements. This book explores the economic networks within a region framed by the Pindhos and Balkan mountain chains on the west and north, the Black Sea and the Bosporus to east and south, in the second half of the first millennium bc. The Greco-Persian wars, at the start of this period, triggered a process of political integration, as two dynastic powers, Macedon and Odrysian Thrace, expanded across this land mass, and whose progressive demise brought about by Roman military and political interventions culminated in economic integration with the Roman state, as represented in the implementation of the tax law of Asia, during the course of the first century bc. The chapters focus at least as much on preoccupations with workmanship, as they do on the lifestyles of leading fashionable circles, and the economic agents of the intervening centuries, such as merchants from Thasos, leather workers of civic centres of the interior, and metal smiths from various mountainous zones. Exchange is unthinkable without markets playing a key role, while animals must also be factored into the debate about travel and the intensity of traffic.

The endogenous rise of primary states constituted a major organizational revolution, for through emulation or coercion these states served as prototypes for all subsequent large-scale, politically ...
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The endogenous rise of primary states constituted a major organizational revolution, for through emulation or coercion these states served as prototypes for all subsequent large-scale, politically organized societies that have replaced and encompassed all small-scale societies. Primary states emerged before sophisticated writing systems in six generally recognized regions: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica, and Andean South America. This book identifies Polynesia as the seventh such region by tracing the emergence of primary states in Hawai`i that, along with the Tongan state, were the only ones described by fully literate eyewitnesses. The Hawaiian state emergence model, constructed here from archaeological and historical evidence, employs comparisons with Tonga and five Polynesian nonstate societies to propose that the Hawaiian state emergence entailed a profound sociopolitical transformation in which leadership of each large Hawaiian island shifted from a relatively powerless symbolic chief to a warrior-king who exercised legitimate political power as head of a centralized government. The key management innovation was the ruler’s ability to assert control indirectly by delegating power among multiple tiers of a hierarchical bureaucracy. Modeled modifications of the old order also included the funding of government operations with taxes diverted from the goods once collected for distribution among commoners, the invention of conquest warfare, and the shift from dual ownership to chiefs’ assertion of property rights superior to those of commoners. According to the hard times hypothesis, a major impetus for the escalation of power politics may have been unrest among chiefs and commoners triggered by faltering agricultural productivity.Less

The Ancient Hawaiian State : Origins of a Political Society

Robert J. Hommon

Published in print: 2013-04-05

The endogenous rise of primary states constituted a major organizational revolution, for through emulation or coercion these states served as prototypes for all subsequent large-scale, politically organized societies that have replaced and encompassed all small-scale societies. Primary states emerged before sophisticated writing systems in six generally recognized regions: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, China, Mesoamerica, and Andean South America. This book identifies Polynesia as the seventh such region by tracing the emergence of primary states in Hawai`i that, along with the Tongan state, were the only ones described by fully literate eyewitnesses. The Hawaiian state emergence model, constructed here from archaeological and historical evidence, employs comparisons with Tonga and five Polynesian nonstate societies to propose that the Hawaiian state emergence entailed a profound sociopolitical transformation in which leadership of each large Hawaiian island shifted from a relatively powerless symbolic chief to a warrior-king who exercised legitimate political power as head of a centralized government. The key management innovation was the ruler’s ability to assert control indirectly by delegating power among multiple tiers of a hierarchical bureaucracy. Modeled modifications of the old order also included the funding of government operations with taxes diverted from the goods once collected for distribution among commoners, the invention of conquest warfare, and the shift from dual ownership to chiefs’ assertion of property rights superior to those of commoners. According to the hard times hypothesis, a major impetus for the escalation of power politics may have been unrest among chiefs and commoners triggered by faltering agricultural productivity.

Although long considered to be a barren region on the periphery of ancient Chinese civilization, the southwest massif was once the political heartland of numerous Bronze Age kingdoms during the first ...
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Although long considered to be a barren region on the periphery of ancient Chinese civilization, the southwest massif was once the political heartland of numerous Bronze Age kingdoms during the first millennium BC. Their distinctive material tradition—intricately cast bronze kettledrums and cowrie shell containers—have given archaeologists and historians a glimpse of the extraordinary wealth, artistry, and power exercised by highland leaders in prehistory. After a millennium of rule, however, imperial conquest under the Han state in 109 BC reduced local power, leading to the disappearance of Bronze Age traditions and a fraught process of assimilation. Instead of a clash between center and periphery or barbarism and civilization, this book examines the classic study of imperial conquest as a confrontation of different political times. The author grounds an archaeological account of the region where landscape histories and funerary traditions associated the Dian and Mimo polities bring to light a history of competing elite lineages, warrior cultures, and chiefly genealogies. In particular, the book illustrates how precious funerary offerings—drums, ornate weaponry, and cowries—distinguished personal biographies and memories that were central to the transmission of status across generations. Imperial incorporation therefore emerges as a problem that entangled Han bureaucratic time and historical production with the generational time of highland leadership and its political cycles. The book extends conventional approaches to empires to show how the political time of prehistory can complicate imperial governance and recast rupture less as a fateful consequence than a contentious process involving local actors and generating new stakes.Less

The Ancient Highlands of Southwest China : From the Bronze Age to the Han Empire

Alice Yao

Published in print: 2016-01-01

Although long considered to be a barren region on the periphery of ancient Chinese civilization, the southwest massif was once the political heartland of numerous Bronze Age kingdoms during the first millennium BC. Their distinctive material tradition—intricately cast bronze kettledrums and cowrie shell containers—have given archaeologists and historians a glimpse of the extraordinary wealth, artistry, and power exercised by highland leaders in prehistory. After a millennium of rule, however, imperial conquest under the Han state in 109 BC reduced local power, leading to the disappearance of Bronze Age traditions and a fraught process of assimilation. Instead of a clash between center and periphery or barbarism and civilization, this book examines the classic study of imperial conquest as a confrontation of different political times. The author grounds an archaeological account of the region where landscape histories and funerary traditions associated the Dian and Mimo polities bring to light a history of competing elite lineages, warrior cultures, and chiefly genealogies. In particular, the book illustrates how precious funerary offerings—drums, ornate weaponry, and cowries—distinguished personal biographies and memories that were central to the transmission of status across generations. Imperial incorporation therefore emerges as a problem that entangled Han bureaucratic time and historical production with the generational time of highland leadership and its political cycles. The book extends conventional approaches to empires to show how the political time of prehistory can complicate imperial governance and recast rupture less as a fateful consequence than a contentious process involving local actors and generating new stakes.

This book explores the region of Samnium in central Italy, where a rich blend of historical, literary, epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological evidence supports a fresh perspective on the ...
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This book explores the region of Samnium in central Italy, where a rich blend of historical, literary, epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological evidence supports a fresh perspective on the complexity and dynamism of a part of the ancient Mediterranean that is normally regarded as marginal. This volume presents new ways of looking at ancient Italian communities that did not leave written accounts about themselves but played a key role in the development of early Rome, first as staunch opponents and later as key allies. It combines texts and archaeology to form a new understanding of the ancient inhabitants of Samnium during the last six centuries BC, how they constructed their identity, how they developed unique forms of social and political organization, and how they became entangled with Rome’s expanding power and the impact that this had on their daily lives.Less

Ancient Samnium : Settlement, Culture, and Identity between History and Archaeology

Rafael Scopacasa

Published in print: 2015-06-25

This book explores the region of Samnium in central Italy, where a rich blend of historical, literary, epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological evidence supports a fresh perspective on the complexity and dynamism of a part of the ancient Mediterranean that is normally regarded as marginal. This volume presents new ways of looking at ancient Italian communities that did not leave written accounts about themselves but played a key role in the development of early Rome, first as staunch opponents and later as key allies. It combines texts and archaeology to form a new understanding of the ancient inhabitants of Samnium during the last six centuries BC, how they constructed their identity, how they developed unique forms of social and political organization, and how they became entangled with Rome’s expanding power and the impact that this had on their daily lives.

This book explores a phenomenon known as aniconism — the absence of figural images of gods in Greek practiced religion and the adoption of aniconic monuments, namely objects such as pillars and ...
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This book explores a phenomenon known as aniconism — the absence of figural images of gods in Greek practiced religion and the adoption of aniconic monuments, namely objects such as pillars and poles, to designate the presence of the divine. Shifting our attention from the well-known territories of Greek anthropomorphism and naturalism, it casts new light on the realm of non-figural objects in Greek religious art. Drawing upon a variety of material and textual evidence dating from the rise of the Greek polis in the eighth century bc to the rise of Christianity in the first centuries ad, this book shows that aniconism was more significant than has often been assumed. Coexisting with the fully figural forms for representing the divine throughout Greek antiquity, aniconic monuments marked an undefined yet fixedly located divine presence. Cults centred on rocks were encountered at crossroads and on the edges of the Greek city. Despite aniconism's liminality, non-figural markers of divine presence became a subject of interest in their own right during a time when mimesis occupied the centre of Greek visual culture. The ancient Greeks saw the worship of stones and poles without images as characteristic of the beginning of their own civilization. Similarly, in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the existence of aniconism was seen as physical evidence for the continuity of ancient Greek traditions from time immemorial.Less

Aniconism in Greek Antiquity

Milette Gaifman

Published in print: 2012-05-31

This book explores a phenomenon known as aniconism — the absence of figural images of gods in Greek practiced religion and the adoption of aniconic monuments, namely objects such as pillars and poles, to designate the presence of the divine. Shifting our attention from the well-known territories of Greek anthropomorphism and naturalism, it casts new light on the realm of non-figural objects in Greek religious art. Drawing upon a variety of material and textual evidence dating from the rise of the Greek polis in the eighth century bc to the rise of Christianity in the first centuries ad, this book shows that aniconism was more significant than has often been assumed. Coexisting with the fully figural forms for representing the divine throughout Greek antiquity, aniconic monuments marked an undefined yet fixedly located divine presence. Cults centred on rocks were encountered at crossroads and on the edges of the Greek city. Despite aniconism's liminality, non-figural markers of divine presence became a subject of interest in their own right during a time when mimesis occupied the centre of Greek visual culture. The ancient Greeks saw the worship of stones and poles without images as characteristic of the beginning of their own civilization. Similarly, in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the existence of aniconism was seen as physical evidence for the continuity of ancient Greek traditions from time immemorial.

The “science of old things,” archaeology is marked by its care, obligation, and loyalty to things, from ancient cities in the Mexican heartland and megalithic monuments in Britain to the perfume jars ...
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The “science of old things,” archaeology is marked by its care, obligation, and loyalty to things, from ancient cities in the Mexican heartland and megalithic monuments in Britain to the perfume jars of the ancient Greek city-state and Leica cameras. This book seeks to understand the diverse practices that arise through this disciplinary commitment to things.Less

Archaeology : The Discipline of Things

Bjørnar OlsenMichael ShanksTimothy WebmoorChristopher Witmore

Published in print: 2012-11-19

The “science of old things,” archaeology is marked by its care, obligation, and loyalty to things, from ancient cities in the Mexican heartland and megalithic monuments in Britain to the perfume jars of the ancient Greek city-state and Leica cameras. This book seeks to understand the diverse practices that arise through this disciplinary commitment to things.

Classical archaeology has changed beyond recognition in the past generation, in its aims, its choice of subject-matter and the methods it uses. This book contains twenty-five chapters, some of them ...
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Classical archaeology has changed beyond recognition in the past generation, in its aims, its choice of subject-matter and the methods it uses. This book contains twenty-five chapters, some of them previously published only in rather inaccessible places, which have contributed to this change. The chapters cover four decades of work on pre-classical and classical Greece and some adjacent fields of scholarship, beginning in the 1960s when classical archaeology was not widely seen as a free-standing subject. They chart the progress of a movement for the intellectual independence of Greek archaeology and art, from history and textual studies and for recognition among other branches of archaeology. The key theme of the chapters is the importance of the Iron Age as the formative period in the making of classical Greece and the text varies this with comment on literature, history, anthropology, Aegean and European prehistory and Roman provincial archaeology. This collection represents innovative work in classical archaeology; challenges accepted boundaries and inhibitions; and is wide in scope, covering history, prehistory, art, literary interpretation, and field archaeology.Less

Archaeology and the Emergence of Greece

Anthony Snodgrass

Published in print: 2006-05-31

Classical archaeology has changed beyond recognition in the past generation, in its aims, its choice of subject-matter and the methods it uses. This book contains twenty-five chapters, some of them previously published only in rather inaccessible places, which have contributed to this change. The chapters cover four decades of work on pre-classical and classical Greece and some adjacent fields of scholarship, beginning in the 1960s when classical archaeology was not widely seen as a free-standing subject. They chart the progress of a movement for the intellectual independence of Greek archaeology and art, from history and textual studies and for recognition among other branches of archaeology. The key theme of the chapters is the importance of the Iron Age as the formative period in the making of classical Greece and the text varies this with comment on literature, history, anthropology, Aegean and European prehistory and Roman provincial archaeology. This collection represents innovative work in classical archaeology; challenges accepted boundaries and inhibitions; and is wide in scope, covering history, prehistory, art, literary interpretation, and field archaeology.